disordinary

Maybe, but the problem is that in a restructure like this the high performers often leave in protest to the culture problems that a restructure creates and austerity measures.

Often though they don't cull low performers, they give each department a budget or a head count they have to hit. A department made up of high performers will have to cull a high performer to hit budget, a department which is overloaded will become more overloaded and people will quit in response.

In a company the size of Uber a restructure is often a pretty blunt instrument.

In the past when I was unsure I've asked to just have a candid chat outside of the office with my prospective co-workers.

Worked well.

In NZ they recon that electrifying the entire vehicle fleet will only add about 25% demand to the grid, this is somewhat mitigated by the vehicles charging mostly off-peak and when hooked up to a smart meter would actually feed electricity back into the grid when required making the grid more efficient.

I always thought the Māori electorate was a way to give Māori voting rights while acknowledging that they didn't have the same concept of land ownership as the colonists. At the time voting was tied to land ownership. The Māori electorate is tied to race and not land ownership like the general electorate was.

I recall Microsoft would randomly show a preferred browser after their antitrust case? Google could randomly order the search engines.

Maybe? There's also a lot of mining up there and gas production.

In New Zealand the high concentration area is just south of a few active volcano's so it seems that some of it on that map is probably natural causes.

The article I read in NZ showed that natural gas had about half the emissions of coal overall. New Zealand is very seismically active so there's a lot of gas and most probably it's close to the generators. The intention is to move from coal to gas to tide the country over until it can be replaced by wind and tidal. The goal was recently raised from 90 - 95% renewable generation by 2025. Right now on average it sits at 83% renewable but in summer when electricity usage is lower it can be more than 90%.

Yes, the gas is produced locally. Coal is as well incidentally.

I'd say a good chunk of them, but hopefully at the same time other gas stations are being decommissioned and replaced with sustainable generation.

If I look at NZ then in the last ten years pretty much all coal generation has moved to gas but in the same period about the same amount of gas generation was decommissioned and replaced with wind with thousand more MW of generation from wind and tidal consented to be built.

The Huntly power plant in New Zealand is mainly natural gas now. It does maintain the last two coal generators in New Zealand but the intention of these are to be used as an emergency supply when there's a shortfall from hydro and wind. It's not fired consistently and it's usage fluctuates renewable generation in NZ from ~95% when it's off to ~80% when it's running. It was supposed to be shut down in 2016 but that was pushed back to 2025 when NZ is supposed to be above 90% renewable generation consistently.

That's surprising, not because of the amount that elderly watch TV (here my grandfather won't move from the living room when the cricket's on), but because I thought more people under the age 60 would be behind a computer 8 hours a day.

If you're progressive then NZ is a good place with strong social support and networks. There's definitely plenty of faults but it's not nearly as bad as other countries in most cases.

There's also not the extreme rifts that we see elsewhere. If you look at reform for instance then there was broad cross party support for firearm reform, abortion reform, and euthanasia reform all in the last few months with both left and right parties voting for all of the above, something which would be pretty inconceivable in a country like the US where people seem to take opposite views on things just because they refuse to agree with the other side.

The population is largely free of extremists and have a culture of just getting on with things and working together, this comes from the extreme isolation which we've historically had. That leads to people being irreligious, educated, and practical.

It's very democratic and has very low levels of corruption, politicians are accessible and mostly trusted.

This is tempered by a high cost of living compared to wages.

Unfortunately we have seen a rise of US style far-right opinions and extreme views fed from the internet (like antivax and also a rise of disinformation and fake news). Ironically this may mean that politicians will be forced to become less accessible and democracy and freedoms may take a back seat to security as we've seen in the US. I hope not.

The abortion laws are old and antiquated (from the 60s), basically a woman needs a doctors permission to get an abortion, in reality this isn't a problem with most doctors but it is demeaning.

There's a new law which just passed the first reading in parliament (with 80% voting yes) to remove any restrictions so thankfully this will no longer be an issue and a woman will be able to make the decision without having to go to a doctor.

So, while the laws are old it's actually positive that there's so much cross party support for progressive reform. Another law which is in it's second reading is euthanasia reform which has similar support.

Depends where you want to travel to, Australia, South East Asia, the west coast of the Americas, and the Pacific islands are all very accessible. There's also plenty of travel to do within New Zealand, because New Zealand runs north to south and is roughly the height of Europe there's a huge variety within a small space.

Also, NZ is pretty diverse. I work in Wellington and my team of 20 is from nine different countries and ethnicities, there's only four born Kiwi's in it (and the Kiwi's have different ethnicities as well some are Maori, others are Pakeha, and others are Indian Kiwis). I read about immigration statistics the other day and 8 of the top ten ethnicities which are granted permanent residents status are from Asia, the Pacific, and Africa, only two are from countries with a European majority (the UK and the US). I find Wellington to be more diverse than when I worked in San Francisco or London.

I don't think you'll find that progressive people outside of the US advocate open borders. Having a points based system which actually means you bring in people who'll have a job waiting for them is better for everyone involved. You also have humanitarian based immigration as well of course. The US is big enough that it can absorb people from all industries and backgrounds, but in smaller countries that's not the case. And it's wrong to bring in people if they end up being Uber drivers because there's not the jobs available for them and their expertise.

You also can't rely on charity and the community. Just look at people who crowd fund for operations, etc. that biases to people who are attractive, young, outgoing, etc. I don't want anything to do with a church based charity personally and I'd feel embarrassed begging for money, I would not want to rely on such a corrupt institution with their ulterior motives. It's much more practical to centralise the costs of looking after the poor, if you look at the US they pay more per person than pretty much any country on healthcare yet it's ineffective and expensive because of everyone clipping the ticket.

People also don't use misery to buy votes. Here in NZ even the most right wing party wouldn't dream of going to private healthcare. Different parties do have different priorities and because it's a proportionate system with multiple parties in government it's a better reflection on the will of the people. I think one of the biggest problems that you have is that you've got a pretty broken democracy where the majority don't get a say and even if they did you're restricted to two parties and their policies, there's no compromise or grey area it's an all or nothing approach.

It's always going to be a balance. Capitalism drives innovation and investment but making money at the expense of everything else isn't good for individuals or the environment. Socialism might be better for the environment or individuals in theory but it's not good for investment or innovation.

Like with most things in life being a purist is damaging, you need to be pragmatic and let capitalism do what it's good at and temper it with socialism when it's counterproductive.

You're privileged enough to be in the right industry in the right location, with the right skill sets and experience, at the right time. If things were different you'd get no holidays, no job security, etc. I know people in tech on the east coast of the US who struggle to get two weeks leave and struggle to change jobs. Four weeks is something the rest of the world just takes for granted. I also know people that have been bankrupted because of health costs, this was my uncle who was a millionaire and had the best insurance money could buy. His wife got cancer, they fought the insurance company, sold the business and the car collection and houses, she died, he went bankrupt. It was very sad.

I used to work in the bay area but ultimately decided to come home. Here in NZ in the tech industry I earn a couple of hundred thousand which is admittedly less than I'd learn in the US but while things like employment protection aren't important to me right now I also take comfort by the fact that if I get hit by a car ACC will cover my loss of income and rehabilitation, I simply don't have to worry about getting sick or injured. I also take comfort by the fact that everyone, be it a barista or a barrister, has the same perks (like four weeks paid leave, sick leave) and protection that I do.

Another example: a company I worked for in NZ was a US multinational, they did a big restructure where they laid off thousands. Because of employment law most of the lay offs were people in the US, South America, and Asia. Europe and New Zealand were almost completely unscathed, it was just easier.

How much paid vacation do you get? Sick days? How much maternity leave does your wife get? What sort of employment protection do you have?

The difference isn't as clear cut as it seems on the surface.

You can definitely have elective surgery through the public health system but there's a set number done per year whereas all other treatment are done as soon as possible.

There's also a scale that the United States has over all other OECD countries. It's by far the largest in population and therefore has more specialist equipment. A country like Canada with almost a tenth of the population will have less facilities.

The NZ system is similar. GPs are subsidised (your primary health provider) but hospitals are run by the government and are free. The unfortunate thing is you have to go through the GP to get a referral to the Hospital (unless you go into A&E).

The other interesting system that NZ has is something called ACC which also pays for rehabilitation and loss of income when someone has an accident. If you are paralysed and can no longer work then ACC will pay you something like 80% of your income until you manage to find another job. That could be for the rest of your life.

Here in New Zealand you don't get asked any questions about finances or being able to afford it but if it's elective and not urgent you'll be prioritised behind those who need the healthcare urgently. No bureaucrats involved (unless it's very specialised care like experimental medication or the need to send someone overseas) just the doctors and specialists.

Public healthcare isn't the same in every country.

Also, if you have long term medical problems which are going to burden the tax payer they're not going to let you in.

I've put stickers on laptops before but it's always been OpenSource projects which I use and only to cover scuff marks as the laptops age.

Commercial products to me seem similar to wearing brand names.

That's sad. If you can't trust your government who you elected and represent you who do you trust?

I trust my government and in the controls around it, even when parties that I didn't vote for were in power.

Yeah, I wouldn't call the current British government strong but I would call the past six NZ governments strong. Each of those governments have been made up of at least three parties working together.

The Australian electoral system is first past the post too and is similarly as chaotic as the UK.

Well, depending on where you are you can also vote for the local green party. If you're in a proportional election system then that the bigger the green voting block is the better. If you're in a country with a first-past-the-post electoral system like the US, UK, or Australia then things are much tougher and you should also be campaigning for electoral reform to make your country more democratic.

Just a ground swell at the local level, cities all around the world are calling climate emergencies including all the main cities in New Zealand. The NZ government will have to follow suit.

Bigger cities are following too including New York and Sydney today.

I think they just like to watch our reactions.

None taken, it's more interesting to work for a large scale global company. Solutions that I help develop are used by hundreds of millions if not billions of people every day. Very few companies in the local market have that scale.

It will get better at some point, we're just delivering a lot of projects in Europe but attention will shift to this part of the world next. But if it doesn't look like it will improve I'll probably look for something else when the current set of products are in market.

I also choose to have meetings at night, work would happily pay for me to fly to Europe but I try and avoid flights when bluejeans will suffice for environmental reasons.